


Bloody Fingernails

by Poshii



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Brothers, Claustrophobia, Gen, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Klaus Deserves Better, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, low key turning into a klaus and vanya story lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-01 14:31:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17869022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poshii/pseuds/Poshii
Summary: “Klaus.” Diego says. But Klaus can barely hear him over the sound of his own heartbeat. Nausea creeps into his throat as he reaches up to rub at his face uselessly.He hits the door again this time with his fist, “LET US OUT!”((AKA: Diego and Klaus get trapped in a room together. It took EVERY ounce of my willpower not to title this ‘klaustraphobic’.))





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! There is a panic attack in this story if you find descriptions of panic attacks triggering you may not want to read this !!! <3 thank you

Klaus had been taking his time exploring the old man’s mansion. Most all the places that had been so interesting to a kid not allowed to visit. But now, the second Klaus stepped into them they lost every last appealing quality they’d had almost immediately. 

Now they were filled with nothing but the same old tacky furniture that filled every other room, the same old paintings, old antiques, useless books. 

At least they were all probably worth a small fortune now that dad was dead and gone. People would be clamoring to get their hands around one of his possessions, let alone a wholeass room of them. 

Klaus nimbly wraps his hand around the edge of a door frame and leaned his way inside.

He’s met with a small corridor, tall twin doors at the end.

“Ah, what do we have here?” he asks, his lip quirking upwards as he looks around for a moment to see if anyone is watching him.

It’s not locked, surprisingly so he just opens the doors and steps inside. 

He’s immediately hit with the scent of dust and mildew. He lets out a dramatic whistle at the smell, holding his nose dramatically, “Jesus, would a little extra upkeep in here kill ya?” he asks out loud to dad. 

And then giggles to himself, wondering if it had.

Bookcases line almost every wall, top to bottom, all gross all faded all old. He folds his arms as he spins in a loose circle to take in the room staggering to a stop when his eyes catch a bare wall.

There was a single painting hanging over it, illuminated by what looked like a stage light. The woman in the painting was pretty fucking hot, all posed for a picture with her hair and makeup done up to hell. Her smile was tight, like she’d been holding it for too long. Klaus crosses his arms and heads over, taking a drag of his cigarette. 

 

He leans forwards so that his ass sticks out and his feet stay firmly planted on the wood floors and blows a puff directly into the face of the woman. 

The little caption under the piece was in tiny print, and klaus had to practically press his nose against it to get a read. 

That’s when he notices a tiny crack between the wall and the bookshelf adjacent from the woman, and a faint glow appearing from beyond it.

A little smile pulls the corner of his lip, “Finally something interesting?”

He pushes himself across the room and puts a hand on the little crack, before feeling up and down the side of the bookcase.

“My first clue?!” he exclaims as his fingers brush a little switch. 

Nothing happens, “Or maybe not.”

And just as he’s about to back up the bookshelf makes this horrible groaning noise, so loud that Klaus actually brings his hands up to his ears, and scuttles back. 

The thing slides backwards like a door. It takes Klaus a few seconds to steel himself enough to go over and look in, and he’s met with a small dark room, with easels and paints spread all over the floor, hung up on the walls, and a tiny orange lamp in the corner of the room. 

***

He runs back to the foyar, nearly inhaling his cigarette as he goes, eyes scanning for just one of his siblings to tell the little discovery to. Eventually he sees Diego stalking his way into the main hall, he grabs the railing and leans over it dangerously far. “Deigo, I found something!” he calls down.

Diego stops where he is and Klaus can basically see the internal struggle as he decides whether or not to acknowledge his presence. Eventually one side seems to win and he turns around to look up at his brother.

“Hey now!” Klaus puts his head into his hand, “There’s no need to scowl.” 

Diego's brow creases, “I’m not scowling.” 

“Right right,” Klaus nods, “forgot that’s just what your face looks like.” 

“Just tell me what you want Klaus.” Diego is scowling now, as he crosses his arms, 

“I found something kind of cool- kind of terrifying- in one of those parts of the house we’re not allowed to go.” Diego raises an eyebrow at him, Klaus continues, “although now we can go wherever the fuck we want because dear old dad’s gone to live on the farm but- you know.”

Diego’s face stays steadily scowly, “You wanna go into more detail?” 

Klaus goes into more detail.

***

Soon after they were standing in front of the gaping hole in the wall just staring into it. It was a small room, a little shorter than the average room and a little narrower as well, the paintings inside were creepier than they’d first appeared, all twisted drawings of what seemed to be people- or ghosts, he shudders as Diego climbs inside and gestures to follow. 

that’s where the mistakes begin. 

As Klaus steps through he feels something thin like a piece of string, pull at his ankle and grow taught as he moves with the momentum of his step. 

A large metal slide snaps down behind him, in one loud sound, that makes Klaus jump forwards and nearly slam into Diego, who moves to the side and manages to keep him up by the collar of his shirt, letting go when Klaus’ hands find the wall and he manages to pull himself together.

For a second the noise reverberates around the room, for another second it’s completely silent.

He stares at the bricks of the wall, it’s so dim inside that he can barely see anything past his arms. He numbly recognizes the sound of diego’s fist pounding a few times on the door, some grunts as he tries to lift it. 

“Goddamnit we’re trapped.” 

The word sends Klaus’ stomach straight to his ass. He presses his forehead to the wall, not turning around just yet. “seriously?” He asks

Diego huffs, “yes seriously. Congratulations you found some old paintings and a hidden death trap. Probably installed to protect the art in here.” 

“Oh fuck you dad.” Klaus whispers, earning a little puff of air from his brother. 

A painful lump forms in Klaus’ throat and his vision blurs dangerously as he forces himself to stay upwards. He turns around slowly so he won’t straight up fall over, and pushes on the door a few times himself, “You give up too easily- there has to be another switch in here” he says trying to keep his voice from shaking as he feels around in the dark for something- anything. 

His movements become more frantic by the second. Moments tick on and he realizes that there truly is no switch on this side at least not one he can find. 

His breathing becomes ragged as he refuses to give up.

“Hello!?” He calls desperately, banging on the door with his open palm “Anyone out there?!” he uses both hands, “Specifically someone with super strength!?”

“Klaus.” Diego says. But Klaus can barely hear him over the sound of his own heartbeat. Nausea creeps into his throat as he reaches up to rub at his face uselessly.

He hits the door again this time with his fist, “LET US OUT!” 

Diego comes closer. “Hey stop! you’re gonna hurt yourself you moron.” 

No one answers. No one’s coming. 

Three more hours at least.

“No no no.” he mutters, holding a hand over his mouth, he staggers backwards, back hitting a wall far too close to the entrance.

Diego's voice sounds like an echo, “Whoa what’s happening?” 

Klaus looks over at him, his eyes wide and desperate, he laughs hollowly. and tries to say something but his voice doesn’t fucking work. “You see-.” he manages, as his breath leaves him unexpectedly and his head spins. 

This is where he regrets not telling anyone about his time in the mausoleum. 

Diego's voice sounds like an echo, “Klaus calm down we’ll-.” 

“-Fuck.” he chokes as his legs go out underneath him. He puts his hands over his ears, and squeezes his eyes shut, trying to make himself as small as humanly possible. He vaguely feels hands on him, trying to keep him upwards- but he doesn’t have much strength in his body, his legs feel like absolute jello- jello that hadn’t even been hardened fully.

He’s shaking so bad his body feels like it’s vibrating and his jaw is clenched so tightly he’s sure a tooth is gonna shatter under the pressure eventually. 

His vision goes dark- comes back, fades again in time with his shallow breathing.

He knows Diego is saying something, because he can hear that faint distinctly Diego hum in his head but he can’t make out the words, and he can’t read his lips because he refuses to open his eyes, he refuses to look at them- even though he sees their silhouettes, the outlines of their faces, the pain in their faded voices all from under his hands and behind his lids. 

He covers his ears and leans forwards so that his head is between his knees, and he’s curled so far over that the ground tickles his nose. His breath becomes so ragged it hurts to breath- his head swells with pain and The hands holding onto him leave. 

He hears banging and yelling- some of it might be his own. 

And then nothing.

***

Klaus wakes up the worst way, All at once with no warning. 

He slams into the nearest thing and falls back immediately, cradling his forehead and sending every curse he can think of under his breath. He’s shaking like he does when he’s gotten a little too much taste for them, and folds his arms around himself, clenching his fists to stop.

“Klaus?” 

He blinks his eyes open- and the light is far far too bright so he closes them again, groaning at the headache forming. Something, (prior experience mostly) Tells him the pain was there before he’d crashed heads into someone. 

“Klaus!” He tries again, prying his eyes open to squint up, and finds himself looking at the ceiling of Hargreaves foyar, from the less than comfortable couch. For a moment he’s confused as he looks around the room. 

It’s around that golden hour where the sun is setting and casting a warm light through every open window. A truly disgusting time of day really.

He tilts his head back a little and is met with Diego staring down at him, and the events of the afternoon come rushing back in horribly vivid detail. He looks away and shakily pulls himself up into a sitting position. 

Diego comes around the couch, he opens his mouth like he’s going to say something- and doesn’t. 

Klaus sighs, rubbing at his eyes, “How’d you manage to get us out of there? I thought your power was throwing shit...” as he asks his eyes land on Diego's fingers which are scrapped and bloody. 

“I pried the door open.” 

Klaus blinks, “I see.”

The tension is thick- awkward, Klaus rubbs at his arms and slides his legs around so that they dangle off the couch and he slinks back, tilts his head back against the cushion and takes a moment to calm himself down, and try to come up with something to say that’ll make Deigo think he’s a little less pathetic than he actually is. 

For once he’s coming up empty. 

“Klaus what happened?” Diego finally says. 

“The dreaded question.” he responds too quickly, scratching the back of his ear and getting up a little fast. His head spins and he grabs the side of the couch for support. “The answer anticlimactic dear brother. Nothing happened. I- must have overdosed on something again, or had a bad reaction” he shrugged his arms up dramatically. “You know me, the little scamp

Diego shakes his head, “No-Whatever happened in there- you were terrified, Klaus.”

Klaus leans forwards, raising an eyebrow, “Bad trips will do that to ya, not that you’d know mr goody tool shoes.” 

“It’s two shoes.”

“It’s a play on the phrase!” Klaus exclaims, turning his back to his brother. He rubs at his face trying to get his shaking under control. His body rarely listens to him about that kind of thing though. He feels around his jacket for his phone- and realizes he didn’t have it. 

He must of left it somewhere-

A hand grabs his shoulder firmly and he flinches. He can see the blood on Diego's fingers out of his peripheral vision.

“Come on man, I know something else is going on- just tell me before I get annoyed.” 

He stands there for a moment, eyes closed as he considers his options. “It was an overdose.” he says quietly.

The hold on his shoulder tightens, almost enough to be painful, and then releases all together. “Fine. Keep telling yourself that.”

Angry footsteps head out of the room and the front door slams behind them. 

Klaus sinks to the floor, crossing his arms around his knees and fishes out another cigarette.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead of cuddling up though he finds himself tipping sideways right over the side of a table. 
> 
> He doesn’t feel the impact of hitting the ground but he does feel something sharp in his neck a few moments later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!!  
> thanks for the response to the first chapter of this story I decided to keep it going a bit longer because of how many people were interested in it!!! <333 I loved reading through all the comments so thank you so much <333
> 
> ALSO here's Klaus' playlist or one I imagine he probably has and the song i had playing while writing one of the scenes ;) you'll know which one.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URwX1oWdnUY&index=5&list=RDGFgFVooMTzs
> 
>  
> 
> WARNINGS:  
> there's blood, some vomiting, and talk of death with an illusion to suicide suicide. SO IF you're sensitive to any of that maybe skip on this one! otherwise happy reading!!!!

Klaus can’t sleep. 

Even with the shit he’d taken and even though he’s dizzy and clearly faded out of his mind, he simply cannot get his body to drift off. He’s just too aware of their presence tonight it seems. Sometimes they’re more active- or stronger- or whatever and he can’t predict when it’ll happen but when it does it’s near impossible to do anything other than sit on edge.

And it is goddamn infuriating.

He forces himself up by his elbows and rubs his temple with a cold hand as he glances to the clock on his bedside. 

“The witching hour.” he whispers spookily.

The lights in the room are all on, but that’s how he liked to sleep on nights like these, the dark made the drifters more likely to slide through and mess with him so lights on was the way to go. He quite literally slid off the bed, the back of his hand pressed into his forehead dramatically so ‘hello’ would be in full view of any passersby.

‘Klaus’

And he lay there, splayed out egal on the ground of his childhood bedroom. He can feel them creeping into his peripherals as he tries his best not to acknowledge their presence. 

He’d never changed out of the clothes he was wearing the night before. A mesh shirt, a calf length skirt with a funky pattern and a rough choker that wrapped around his neck light a noose, pulled so taught it was borderline uncomfortable.

‘Klaus’

He’d always liked the feeling of being choked, maybe it was that deeply damaged side of him and the feeling made him feel closer to the things he feared. Therefor he feared them less.

‘Klaus’

He laughed to himself at the thought, as it was probably just that kinkier side. He couldn’t distinguish the two well these days. 

‘Klaus’

They creep closer. 

he figures he’d spent enough time wallowing and lets out a frustrated huff, prying himself from the floor.

He can feel their breath on the back of his neck. 

It’s cold in hargreeves mansion, and not just metaphorically. So he grabs a jean jacket, lined with soft fur off the floor that isn’t his and staggers into the hallway. He just needed a drink, or eight.

‘Klaus’ 

Yeah eight should do it.

***

He doesn’t actually keep count, electing to instead take an entire bottle of high west bourbon from the bar in the foyar. He Chooses the bottle because he likes the little drawing of the cowboy and horse because it reminds him of brokeback mountain, the only cowboy themed piece of media that mattered. 

He does admittedly try to find a cowboy hat- or hat in the vague shape of one to go with his drink but doesn’t manage to in the end. He finds something even better though, a box of his fathers fancy cigars. 

Klaus lights one as he sways back and forth to a playlist he’d basically had on repeat on for years now and takes his time getting as drunk as super-humanly possible.

***

Somewhere around five he finally gets there. 

He’s laying on the table, an arm lazily thrown over his eyes when he feels himself starting to blackout. Klaus welcomes it with open fucking arms and a smile on his face as he cradles the near-empty bottle under his arm.

***

 

He wakes up to the sound of something smashing on the ground and his stomach contracting as he jolts. He blearily looks around- and doesn’t see anything threatening, so he simply closes his eyes again.

***

The orange afternoon sun is starting to peel through the few windows and get rudely and directly into his eyes, and he groans. His mouth is bone fucking dry- and his stomach feels like it’s been hit with a mallet a few times. He licks his cracked lips and turns to find a more comfortable position. 

Instead of cuddling up though he finds himself tipping sideways right over the side of a table. 

He doesn’t feel the impact of hitting the ground but he does feel something sharp in his neck a few moments later.

The sharp pain sobers him up real fast as he clambers to a sitting position, holding onto the side of his neck where it’s concentrated. He can feel something wet and sticky finding its way down his side to the fabric of (not) his jacket and dizzily hopes whoever owns it doesn’t want the thing back. 

He blinks, wide eyed. He can breathe fine, so hopes the cut isn’t too too deep. For a second he wonders if he can just sleep it off, and then he looks down and sees there’s already plenty of blood dripping into the floor- and there’s about to be more as he gets a look at his hand and sees that there’s a second cut right through ‘goodbye’.

Glass is all over the ground from the smashed west and he lets out a wince, adjusting to sit cross legged. It was a waste of Bourbon.

“Fucking fantastic.” he croaks, and attempts to get to his feet. His head is spinning from the sight and the drugs and probably the drink too- a truly perfect storm of things to get nauseated over. 

Speaking of, 

He just manages to make it to the sink before his stomach rejects all that bourbon from the night before. 

When it’s over he’s gagging and spitting as he breaths and tries to get control over himself as he leans heavily on the edge of the sink, blood and spit mixing sickly in the drain. 

He cleans his mouth out with some water and then chugs a few gulps down directly from the faucet to get the taste out of his mouth. When he lifts his head black spots dance in his vision and almost cause him to keel over. 

“Oh this is bad.” 

He gets it together enough to plant his ass on the table, and spends the next few seconds just trying to take in the situation and come up with a good plan of action to get the wounds taken care of-

“Oh my god!” he hears a soft voice whisper under their breath. He looks up to see Vanya standing in the frame of the door, her mouth covered with both hands, “O-oh my god, that’s a lot of blood.”

They stare across the room for a few moments before Klaus raises an eyebrow and flashes her a sort-of-grin. There’s blood in his teeth.

“So ist das Leben?” He gestures with his free hand.

A look of confusion crosses her face for a second before she took a few big steps forwards, carefully avoiding the glass on the floor. Her hands hover stiffly over the wound on his neck. “That- God- what happened?” 

As she asks her eyes scan the whole scene and she seems to piece it together. Klaus gives her the rundown regardless. 

“Nothing that hasn’t happened before, just some antics you know.” He nods, “I’ll be fine lil sis.”

Vanya swallows thickly, “we were born at the same time Klaus.” 

“I was speaking in terms of height.” he responds holding his hand out just above her head, she pushes it back in his direction. “Great timing by the way.” He compliments with a crooked smile.

“I saw you when i got breakfast so I was- checking on you periodically. To make sure you weren’t dead.”

Klaus taps gently at her temple and leaves a fingerprint of blood, she flinches at the contact. “Smart smart, you always were the smart on.” 

“Not smart enough to take that bottle from you…” she trails off.

Klaus waves his hand, “Nonsense, I had that thing in a deathgrip, not even Luther could pry her from me.” 

She makes a scrunchy face that’s unreadable, her eyes darting from the floor to his injuries, “I-I’m not great with the whole” she gestures uselessly, “I’ll get Diego.” 

Klaus grimaces “Oh c’mon Vanya,” he whines, “weren’t you trained in all that first aid stuff like the rest of us? Put those talents to use, maybe your power this whole time was first aid who knows! You certainly don’t until you try it, eh?” 

“Don’t mock me.” 

“What? I’m not-” 

But she was already jogging back up the stairs.

“You’d do it for Allison!” He calls after her.

“I wouldn’t have to!” is the response. 

***

Klaus screams through a pursed mouth as the peroxide drips into his open wound. His hands are digging so hard into the back of the couch that his knuckles turn white. 

Vanya had shortly disappeared through the front door after she’d dropped him off in Diego’s care. He hadn’t pictured her as the squeamish type but- he didn’t know her very well these days.

Diego quickly wipes away the excess as he works, he’d barely said anything the whole time he’d been patching klaus up. 

“You enjoyed that didn’t you.” Klaus pants, biting the cushion under his chin. Diego huffs, but doesn’t confirm or deny the accusation. “Come on- can’t you just talk to me at least- keep my mind off the ‘agonizing’ pain.” he puts a dramatic inflection on the word hoping it’ll win him some sympathy. 

Diego let’s out another huff of air, more aggressive this time. “You want to talk?” he asks, “Fine,”

Klaus feels relief flood him, it looks like they'll be able to go back to normal, until Diego continues. “Why don’t we talk about how sick everyone is getting of you.” 

Klaus flinches against the words, the muscles in his back tensing. “You know, I don’t think this is the kind of talking I had in mind.”

“All you do is steal, drink, fuck around and inject your powers away.” 

“I was picturing a story,” Klaus tilts his head to the side, giving Diego a better view of his wound, so he can finish patching it up. 

“Don’t you realize how much they’d help us. Seriously you haven’t even been able to talk to dad yet.” 

“Maybe a nice bonding memory from our childhood, like the time we put snails in Luther’s pillow case.”

A little exasperated laugh leaves Diego’s mouth. 

“Well I did the snails, but you didn’t stop me so teamwork-”

“Dad was wrong about a lot of things Klaus, but we should have listened when he told us we couldn’t rely on you.” Klaus freezes- his stomach flipping. He takes a second to open his mouth because he thinks if he does he’ll throw up down the back of the couch. 

“What?” his voice comes out much softer than he’d wanted.

But Diego doesn’t say anything, he just smooths the bandage over Klaus neck, and tapes it down.

Klaus is glad he’s facing away. He whistles, “Aw shucks, was there some kind of family meeting I wasn’t invited to? What a tragedy I had to miss a party with the stuffiest people on earth! Don’t tell me there were cake donuts and decaf coffee!? Then i’ll really feel left out.” he says dramatically. 

Diego begins to pack things away.

 

Klaus reaches up to cover the bandage now over his neck. He can’t help but picture them all standing around- without him- talking about how useless he is. Maybe they even took place when he was trapped in the mausoleum- maybe that was why he was trapped at all.

A shaky breath leaves his lips.

“Thanks for the help.” he says flatly, “And the pep talk, you should be a therapist honestly, I think you’ve got a real knack for getting people to open up to you-.” Maybe it’s the dizziness, or the blood loss or the hangover, but he can’t keep his voice steady through the whole sentence. 

“Klaus I didn’t-”

Klaus holds his goodbye hand up, but the gauze wrapped around it covers the word. He makes a noise in the back of his throat and settles on using his middle finger. “You know what I meant.”

He heads to leave, prays Diego doesn't follow.

Diego doesn’t follow.

Klaus needs a bath, and a new family. Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE reading comments so if you have anything to say to me PLEASE do <3 appreciate it :U:

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading comments are INCREDIBLY appreciated! Let me know if you have any suggestions or would like me to write more klaus angst hurt/comfort because I’m a bit of a sucker for it lmao and I think im gonna do a little collection of them :).


End file.
